PLANNING to attend the Edinburgh International Film Festival in June? Good idea. The 63rd renewal of the long-running event, which finally moved from its traditional August slot last year with no noticeable drop in sales, quality or buzz, looks potentially the strongest for some time.
The programme, however, is so large – including 135 features over 11 days – that it’s perhaps a little daunting at first glance. Those who only have time for a short excursion to the “Athens of the north” are recommended to concentrate on the period from Monday June 22 to Thursday June 25, which encompasses a rare revival of Bill Douglas’ Comrades, a Roger Corman double bill, an on-stage interview with the legendary Corman himself, plus world premieres of Shane Meadows’ Le Donk and Dario Argento’s Giallo.
The festival kicks off with Away We Go (Wednesday 17 at 9.30pm, 9.45pm and 10pm), the latest from Sam Mendes which is arriving surprisingly soon after the stunning Revolutionary Road. The Cloud-Capped Star (Thursday 18 at noon) is Ritwik Ghatak’s 1960 masterpiece that forms part of the festival’s tantalising showcase of Bengali cinema. Jerichow (Friday 19, 9.30pm), from Germany’s master of psychological suspense, Christian Petzold, follows up his international breakthrough Yella. The Intruder (Saturday 20, 1pm) is the highlight of an
11-film Roger Corman retrospective – a hard-hitting exposé of racism from 1962 starring a pre-Star Trek William Shatner.
Any Tribune readers anywhere near Edinburgh on Monday June 22 really should make the effort to catch Comrades (1.30pm), a three-hour drama on the Tolpuddle Martyrs that’s invariably ranked among the greatest achievements of British political cinema. It’s showing here via a newly-restored print – one that we must hope will spark a long-overdue revival of interest in this “lost” 1986 classic.
On Tuesday 23, the Corman double-bill of 1964 Edgar Allan Poe adaptations starring the inimitable Vincent Price starts at 1pm with The Masque of the Red Death and continues at 3.15 with The Tomb of Ligeia. There’s then time to grab a quick shortbread or two before Shane Meadows’ shoestring-budgeted comedy Le Donk at 6pm. This re-teams the director, whose Somers Town won the prize for Best British Film at EIFF 2008, with his Dead Man’s Shoes star Paddy Considine.
Roger Corman’s on-stage interview is at 6pm on Wednesday 24, with Joe Dante (The Howling) in the hot seat at the same time the next day. Thursday ends with perhaps EIFF’s biggest coup, the first public showing of Giallo (10.15pm). Legendary horror maestro Dario Argento (Suspiria) directs Oscar-winner Adrien Brody in a typically convoluted tale of stylishly grisly murder.
A change of pace is provided by the following afternoon’s 35 Shots of Rum (2.35pm) from the wonderful Claire Denis (The Intruder), with Sebastian Silva’s Chilean domestic drama The Maid (4.15pm) and Bruce McDonald’s inventive Canadian shocker Pontypool (10pm) also recommended. The closing day, meanwhile, provides second chances to catch both Jerichow (3.15pm) and Pontypool (10.30pm), while the Corman tribute goes out with all guns blazing – quite literally – courtesy of Shelley Winters in 1970’s Bloody Mama (1pm).
Neil Young
